


you could be happy

by orphan_account



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 17:57:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The laughter, although silent on the screen, echoes throughout Hope's mind as though Kelley was in the next room, and she squeezes her eyes shut against tears the don't deserve to fall.<br/>It's been three months. There's no going back. Kelley's happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you could be happy

**Author's Note:**

> for us-wnt on tumblr even though she didn't specifically ask me (i hope it lives up to what you wanted)

Watching Kelley playing again is what first begins to chip away at Hope's walls. She smiles when she gets the ball, she laughs—actually laughs like she doesn't care anymore—when they win, and she has every right to do so. Hope wishes she didn't have to see it. She loses Kelley on her laptop screen in a clump of Sky Blue players, and knows she's somewhere in the middle of it.

The laughter, although silent on the screen, echoes throughout Hope's mind as though Kelley was in the next room, and she squeezes her eyes shut against tears the don't deserve to fall, not after all this time. Not after what she did.

It's been three months. There's no going back. Kelley's happy.

 ~

It was a long time coming, the eventual explosion. Their relationship was a firecracker, quiet, then volatile before you had the chance to blink, and if anyone stood too close they were bound to get burnt. They started with a bang, a burst of energy that passed between them on a night on the town during camp, and ended with Kelley in Hope's hotel room. They ended with a bang too, in the hallway of Hope's apartment, all fire and heat and rage.

Right at the centre of the explosion, the sensation is stronger than anywhere else. Hope thrust her hand into the centre of the flames, and it felt good for a while. It felt good until she began to pull it away, and then the blisters started to form, and every time she saw Kelley they burst again. The healing process is a long one.

 ~

It wouldn't have been so painful, Hope thinks, if she'd tried a little bit harder to save them. If she'd reached for Kelley's wrist, the most vulnerable part of her, and refused to let her leave. Maybe it would have been less painful if she hadn't torn Kelley down again and again matching every blow with an even harder one.

Maybe it wouldn't have happened at all if Hope had realised what she'd been blessed with, and wasn't so scared. If Hope hadn't slept with a man in a fit of gay panic.

Maybe then Kelley wouldn't have left, and Hope wouldn't have fallen asleep alone that night, and every night after it.

 ~

_'I saw you flirting with him'_

_'Well maybe if you weren't so fucking clingy all the time'_

_'Do you not care about us?'_

_'Kelley, stop being such a fucking child.'_

She swore to try and scare Kelley, to feel bigger, because Kelley had always made her feel tiny. She didn't feel like she'd won though, when Kelley walked out the door, slamming it shut behind her. She felt like she'd lost the most important thing in her life, because that's exactly what happened.

(She still hears everything she shouldn't have said, over and over again)

 ~

Kelley made her happy. Happier than she could ever admit, during their whole relationship. Hope never told her just how happy it made her, waking up to a dash of freckles across her line of sight, hearing Kelley's dumb jokes that she'd pretend to hate (she wants to hear them more than anything now), stolen kisses in empty hallways of hotels, away from the prying eyes of their teammates, with the only person she could stand to be around all the time. She'd been happy before, of course she had, but never in the carefree, untroubled way Kelley made her feel. She had to go and ruin that, didn't she.

 ~

She never deserved Kelley. She never deserved the love she showed her, or the goodness she represented, but she got it all anyway. 

Kelley deserved love. She deserved every ounce of love that a single human being could offer, and she deserved it from someone who wasn't afraid. Hope loved Kelley, with all of her heart, but then Hope was never one to let her heart speak for her.

The rational part of her brain told her all the backlash she would experience from a public relationship with a woman, how many people would hate her. (It forgot to mention the love she could feel, how fast the world was moving in terms of acceptance. It forgot to mention how much worse it would be to lose Kelley.)

 ~

She presses a cushion to her chest to try and calm her breathing, pushing her face against it and inhaling deeply, but it smells like Kelley. If she closes her eyes, breathes again once, twice, it's like nothing's changed. It's like she'd apologised for what she did and begged for forgiveness and right now Kelley is in the kitchen, making them both a coffee, but then she opens her eyes and Kelley's on the screen and very, very far away from her. Even still, after all this time, she hasn't been able to shake Kelley from her apartment, between the echoes of her voice and the smell of her perfume and the things she left behind and never came back for. A second toothbrush in the bathroom. A necklace that doesn't belong to Hope on her dresser. Kelley's favourite shirt, that still brings tears to Hope's eyes and a clenching in her chest when she sees it, folded neatly in her drawer like it belongs there.

It does belong there. Kelley belongs here. Except she's never going to be back.

 ~

Hope's realised a lot in the three months they've been apart, seeing each other only at camps, largely avoiding interaction. The team notices, Hope's sure of it, but hopefully they're all too scared of her to question anything. She knows now that she'd be willing to risk her reputation to be with Kelley publicly. She also knows she can never do that, because she cares too much. Kelley's the kind of person who loves fully, gives every part of herself to her significant other with no care for how it will impact on the rest of her life. If Hope were to try again, to try to love Kelley again (that is, if she ever stopped) (she didn't) then all she would do is hold her back. Hope's reaching the end of her career, even she knows it now, but Kelley's in the prime of hers, and all Hope can do is try not to take that away from her.

 ~

Kelley's on her screen again, walking off the pitch with her teammates, but Hope doesn't register any names. She's got an arm around someone's waist, and she's laughing again, face pressed into Jill's shoulder (she hates that she's not the one in that goalie kit) and Hope can pinpoint now what it looks like. It looks like she's free, and Hope knows that's true. She's not held down anymore by someone scared to commit. She can take over the world, and Hope knows she will. 

 ~

That thought is the only thing that comforts her sometimes. Despite everything, despite the pain she's caused Kelley, which in turn hurt her too, she knows that Kelley can be great. The only thing that keeps her going is knowing she'll get to watch Kelley take over the world.

~ 

Kelley's happy.

Or maybe she's not. Maybe, just like Hope, her smile is fake and her laughter hollow. Maybe she still shakes with sobs in the small hours of the night when no one can hear. Maybe Hope isn't the only one hurting.

Although even if that's true, it's not like she's ever going to know.


End file.
